


add two cups of flour, stir well, do not cry

by weatheredlaw



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birthday, Birthday Cake, Birthday Sex, F/M, France (Country), Incest, Married Couple, Parent/Child Incest, Paris (City)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:15:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1496281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Constants, like the nineteenth of April. Constants, like Booker DeWitt. Constants, like <i>I love you.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	add two cups of flour, stir well, do not cry

**Author's Note:**

> yesterday was booker dewitt's birthday and i hate myself. follow up to [je t'aime... moi non plus](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1467802).

The only reason Elizabeth knows Booker's birth date is because of their marriage license. It's one thing he won't tell her, but he wrote it down so fluidly, so quickly, that she knows it must be true. It's the same way he writes his name, the knowing scrawl across the paper -- constants and variables. 

Constants, like the nineteenth of April. Constants, like Booker DeWitt. Constants, like _I love you._

 

 

 

So many times the two of them will lie in bed, pretending to be sleeping so as not to disturb the other with their thoughts. Elizabeth knows that _Booker_ must know she is lying awake, eyes closed tight, trying to imagine sleep on the inside of her eyes. They tend to give up at the same time, rolling into one another and meeting in the middle. He always kisses her, mumbles something endearing into her mouth before he moves to bring her off with his hand or his mouth. Sometimes she does the same. Sometimes he fucks her until they are worn down, neither ever climaxing, breathing heavy and staring back at one another. 

"I'm too old for this," he'll sometimes say, and she'll laugh and draw her hand over his cock, stroking until he comes with a grown, making a mess of her nightgown. "Sorry--"

"That's alright." She'll draw it over her head and sometimes answer with a smile, "I prefer to sleep this way."

 

 

 

"You know, Mr. DeWitt, I'm quite aware of when your birthday is." Elizabeth drapes herself over his shoulders, standing behind him at the kitchen table while he eats his breakfast, reading the paper. Booker glances over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow.

"Do you now, Mrs. DeWitt?" She nods. "Don't you dare do a thing." He turns back to his paper, but Elizabeth is stubborn, she knows she got that much, at least, from him. "Dammit, Elizabeth--"

"You're a scoundrel, Mr. DeWitt, but I will do as I please."

He scowls. "Rebel woman."

"Rebel _indeed_." She goes back to the kitchen to finish her own breakfast, glancing over at him. 

He's so peculiar looking, when he's pretending to be angry.

 

 

 

Madame Fabre is teeming with joy when Elizabeth tells her she'd like help baking a cake. 

"For your husband? Romantic, my dear. So romantic. I have just the thing." She rushes to her room, coming back with a small card with a recipe written in French. Elizabeth feels her stomach knot -- her and Booker's mottled French-speaking skills are enough to get them by, but Elizabeth is, in fact, _terrible_ at reading French. It's one of her delusions that did not quite meet her expectations, and now she's standing here, staring at this card and wondering how the hell she'll do this.

Booker's the one who can read French, the bastard. 

"You'll help me," she says to him that night. "Won't you?"

"Help you make me a _birthday cake_?" He puts down his book -- written in French, how on _Earth_ does he do it -- and grins. "You're a brave woman, coming to me for help." He takes the card from her. "You know I could _ruin_ this, just because I could."

"You won't," Elizabeth says sharply. "You won't and you know it."

"And why is that?"

She looks up at him, plucking the card from his fingers and setting it on the table. "You won't because you love me." 

Booker scowls, letting himself get wrapped in her arms on their tiny sofa. He rests his head in her lap while she strokes his hair, closing his eyes. It's his favorite thing to do, and she knows it, to let her soothe the nightmares from his temple, fingers brushing at the tinges of grey that have grown in since they've arrived. He exhales deeply, and she knows he's on the edge of sleep. "I suppose that's true, Mrs. DeWitt."

"It is, Mr. DeWitt. The only one we have."

 

 

 

_Elizabeth --_

_I have to work today. I translated the recipe. Last chance to give up.  
Bread in the oven, picked up jam for you on my way in last night._

_Yours, Booker_

 

 

 

It takes twenty minutes of hand-trembling flour and sugar measuring before Elizabeth knocks on Madame Fabre's door, face smeared with cinnamon, bowl in her shaking hands. " _Mon cher._ Inside, please." Elizabeth doesn't know why it's so _damn important_ she made a _cake_ for a man who would be just as happy without one. But it matter, she's doing it, there's no turning back from this. The drama of her life unfolds in bits and pieces -- not long ago she ran from bullets, now she's slicing open vanilla beans. 

"He will like it, trust me. Men do not say no to this cake." 

"You don't know Booker very well," Elizabeth says quietly. Madame Fabre laughs.

"Stubborn men are all alike. You are a strong woman, you will live."

 

 

 

She doesn't insult him with candles, it would be too much and even Elizabeth knows that. Booker inspects the cake, pleased with what she's done, even though he grumbles that he dislikes birthdays, doesn't want anything to do with birthdays. Then -- 

"I forgot your birthday." Elizabeth looks at him, her eyes pleading with him to stop. They never talk about this, she doesn't _want_ to talk about this. "I did. I've lost it, I don't...I don't know when you were born. I was so young, I--" 

"Booker. Please. _Don't._ " She puts her hand over his. "Eat the damn cake, okay?" 

He looks at her and laughs, and she keeps that sound to herself, because it happens so rarely. "Alright, _alright._ " He cuts himself a slice and takes a bite, nodding as he chews. "It's good." She opens her mouth to protest, to say it took her _all day_ \-- but he smiles.

"You're terrible, Mr. DeWitt."

He leans in, kissing her slow and tucking his hand behind her head. "I suppose that's true, Mrs. DeWitt." He pulls back to look at her. "The only one we have."

Elizabeth crawls into his lap, suddenly desperate for touch, for anything. Booker's hands slide under her dress, fingers pressing into the backs of her thighs as she reaches between them to undo the buckle of his belt. He groans into her mouth as she slides her hand down his length, stroking him to full hardness before feeling his fingers push her underwear aside. With a gasp, she guides him into her, their bodies rocking together with the chair, wood creaking under their weight. But neither of them makes any move to get up, to exit _this_ particular moment between them, perfect exactly where it is. 

He always pulls out the worst in her when they're like this, forcing the loudest noises from her throat, noises that make their neighbors turn their faces uncomfortably when they see her in the hall in the morning. Booker has no such hang ups. He has no problem making her beg one minute and going down the stairs the next. _Why be ashamed?_ he always asks. But one of them needs to be, she'll insist. For propriety's sake.

The way he makes her come the first time that night, Elizabeth know that Booker DeWitt does not share her interest in _propriety_. 

Propriety, like Elizabeth sliding down between his legs to get her mouth around him. Propriety, like Booker eating cake as she gets him off. Propriety, like the way he feeds it to her after he's come, wiping her lip clean. 

"You love me," he says, as though it is a surprise every day. Elizabeth nods. "I'll remember your birthday."

"You won't," she murmurs, pulling him toward the bed. "But that's alright. We have all the time in the world to think of a new one."

Booker laughs, shedding his clothes as he crawls into bed with her, turning out the light. "I suppose we do, don't we?"

This is not a night where they pretend to be asleep, though Elizabeth lies away for far longer than Booker, watching him. Sometimes she needs to, just to prove that these moments are real. They _he's_ real. She asked him, once, and it wasn't that long ago, not really. _Are you real?_ He'd answered so quickly, so _sure_ of his solid form, of who he was in that very moment. 

Her rescuer. 

She knows now that word is a misnomer. That Booker DeWitt was no more a hero than she was his daughter. But the lines between both were blurred from the beginning. And, in the end, they rescued one another.

And that, Elizabeth understands, is what matters most.


End file.
